With the federal government teetering on the edge of a shutdown by the end of September 2025, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., is calling out Democrats for what he sees as partisan gamesmanship at a critical hour.
Fox News reported that the U.S. Senate is locked in a bitter stalemate over a short-term funding extension, with Republicans pushing a straightforward bill to keep the government running until mid-November 2025, while Democrats demand concessions on healthcare subsidies and other policy issues, leaving just days to resolve the crisis before the deadline.
Last week, both sides in the Senate dug in their heels, blocking each other’s proposed continuing resolutions and failing to find common ground.
Thune and his Republican colleagues have put forward what they call a "clean" extension, free of partisan add-ons, to carry funding through November 21, 2025.
Democrats, under the leadership of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have countered with a proposal loaded with permanent extensions of Obamacare subsidies, reversals of previous healthcare cuts, and even funding clawbacks for public media like NPR and PBS.
It’s a wish list that Thune has dismissed as dead on arrival in a Republican-controlled House, accusing Democrats of playing to their progressive base rather than seeking a workable solution.
"They're trying to use what they think is leverage to get a bunch of stuff done. It's never going to happen," Thune declared, pointing out the absurdity of expecting such a loaded bill to pass muster with House Republicans.
His frustration is palpable, and it’s hard not to see his point—when the clock is ticking toward a shutdown, why push a proposal that’s more manifesto than compromise?
Meanwhile, Democrats like Senator Chris Murphy, D-Conn., have fired back, claiming Republicans are orchestrating a "planned shutdown" by refusing to negotiate and sending lawmakers home until just before the deadline.
Indeed, with the funding cutoff looming at midnight on September 30, 2025, senators have already left Washington, D.C., not returning until September 29, leaving a razor-thin window of two working days to avert disaster.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has doubled down on this hardline approach, stating the House won’t reconvene until after the deadline, a move that aligns with Thune’s strategy to turn up the heat on Democrats.
Thune himself hasn’t ruled out cutting the current recess short, though sources suggest he’s unlikely to do so, banking instead on the pressure of the impending deadline to force a resolution.
At the heart of the Democratic resistance is a push to address expiring Obamacare premium subsidies now, rather than later in the year, a demand Schumer has made non-negotiable.
Republicans, however, see this as a distraction from the urgent task of simply keeping the government open, while internal GOP dissent from senators like Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, shows not everyone on Thune’s side is fully on board with the current plan.
Murkowski, in particular, has floated a middle-ground idea of a short-term extension that includes past appropriations and a temporary fix for healthcare credits, a suggestion that could potentially break the logjam if either side bends—but with lawmakers scattered and time running out, the path forward remains murky.
